Content Strategy Session: Social Media for Bookkeepers

Ever feel like you’re supposed to “be everywhere” on social media to grow your business — but you’re just trying to keep up with client work and life?

In this inspiring conversation, bookkeeper and QuickBooks expert Erika Millard, host of the Get Comfy with Numbers podcast, joins Ruthie to share how she’s learned to build trust online and market her service-based business with authenticity.

Together, they unpack:

• How Erika shifted from full-service bookkeeping to empowering women to understand their numbers
• Why social media’s role in her funnel has changed — and how that’s actually increased connection
• The tension between showing “real life” as a mom and staying professional online
• How to test your content with intention (without getting stuck in comparison or overthinking)

If you’ve ever wondered how to market your service-based business without burning out, this episode will remind you that clarity beats consistency every time.

👉 Connect with Erika on Instagram @erika_millard
👉 Learn more from Ruthie at theconsistencycorner.com

Looking for a networking event that actually feels good? The Social Media Mixer is a virtual space where founders who support moms can connect, collaborate, and get actionable social media insights—without the awkward Zoom rooms or salesy pitches. Join us every six weeks for fun, structured conversations and strategies you can actually use. Grab a seat or get the All-Access Pass here: theconsistencycorner.com/mixer

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@ruthie.sterrett
@theconsistencycorner

Transcript

Ruthie Sterrett (00:05.159)
Hey friends, welcome back to the Consistency Corner podcast. I am excited to have a conversation with our guest today, Erica, who is a bookkeeping and QuickBooks expert that supports female founders with one thing that we often, like not looking at me at all, avoid is our numbers. And Erica's a wife, a mom of four, and host of the Get Comfy with Numbers podcast. And we're gonna dive into a content clarity session today and chat about what role

social media plays in Erica's business, how she builds trust online, and some of the mindset shifts that maybe sometimes need to happen when we're marketing a service that people technically can do themselves, but maybe they don't want to, or maybe they think they have to. We'll get into all of that. And I have a feeling this conversation is gonna be really helpful for anybody who is a service provider, because I think in the world of Instagram particularly, and we'll get into this more,

We see so much content that is from coaches or course creators. And I think for a service provider, we have to look at things a little bit differently. So we're going to get into that. So Erica, thank you so much for being here. Tell us a little bit about your business and how you support female entrepreneurs.

Erika Millard (01:21.774)
Yeah, well thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. I have, it's crazy every time I say this, been in business for eight years. So I started out doing full service bookkeeping. I knew I wanted to be home with my baby when he was first born and not go back to corporate accounting life. And I had kind of a crazy experience where I was sitting in Starbucks.

with a girl that I had babysat, just telling her the different opportunities about accounting because she was heading off to college and she was interested in the field. And so we're chatting and I'm sitting there with my baby on maternity leave and a man leans over and he says, I could really use some help and I don't care if you work from home. And that became my first client. And that just kind of.

Ruthie Sterrett (02:07.911)
Wow, what a cool story.

Erika Millard (02:10.611)
morphed, it kind of morphed from there. The venue where we got married needed help and so they found my information and contacted me and things just kind of snowballed from there. And so I did that for several years and then I felt like I think I have some other giftings and talents that just aren't quite being utilized. And so when I started, so I had been in business three or four years before I ever even started talking about it on social media.

And when I started talking about it on social media, I had several females in particular say, well, I can't afford a full service bookkeeper yet, so could you just teach me how to use QuickBooks? Or could you just help me not cry when I go talk to my CPA? Or could you just break down what these words mean, because I don't understand what I'm looking at and I feel really dumb and I don't know where to turn to ask these kind of questions.

And so I just thought, well, maybe there's something here. And so this is kind of getting to be a long story, but that is how I got to be doing what I'm doing now through my podcast, what, and the services that we offer. So whether you're just starting out and ready to set up your QuickBooks, whether you've been trying to start using QuickBooks and it's a mess and you just need help cleaning it up or catching it up, or you're to that point where you don't want to do it anymore yourself and you want it outsourced.

We provide help in all of those areas, but what I really love to do is help empower females to actually understand it. So even if you are outsourcing it, look at the numbers and know what they mean. One, so that you don't get taken advantage of, but two, so that you can make really smart decisions around those numbers. So that is my long answer of why I do what I do and a little bit of how I got here.

Ruthie Sterrett (03:59.449)
Yeah, I'm curious, when did you start podcasting?

Erika Millard (04:02.645)
It's been two years this month, actually.

Ruthie Sterrett (04:05.447)
Okay, that's exciting. And how has podcasting, adding that into your content mix, how has that maybe shifted how you approach social media?

Erika Millard (04:16.681)
Yeah, it actually has a lot because originally I started out on social media really planning for it to be the top funnel introduction of meeting new people and making those connections. And what I found now that I have a podcast is that it's actually

become a little bit more of a middle funnel the social media has where people will find me through the podcast and through listening and then come over on social media. think one to make sure that I'm the same person on social media and the podcast, but then two, they'll DM me and say, hey, I've been listening and I just want to make sure I'm a good fit or I just so they continue the conversation. It's almost like.

the podcast is the first date and then social media is like continuing the relationship. And so that's what I found that's been a little bit unexpected. I didn't expect that, that it was really taking the relationship deeper is what it seems like social media has been doing for me.

Ruthie Sterrett (05:22.159)
Yeah, and I think that's so important to define and understand. And I'd love the analogy of like, this piece of my business is the first date. This piece of my business is like second date, third date, fourth date. Because like when we look around at other business owners, and I think this happens to a lot of women and it probably happens with your numbers too. Like I heard somebody say this about their business or their numbers, or I heard somebody say this. And so like, I think maybe that's what I should be doing or it should look like that for me. That's not necessarily true.

your numbers are going to be different and the things that you look out and the levers that you pull and the decisions that you make are all going to be customized to your business, your stage of life and content is the exact same way. For some podcasters, social media is top of funnel and then the podcast is middle of funnel. Like people are getting to know them more in their podcasts but discovering them on social media. So I love that you've defined

where social media fits in your customer journey and what job it has for your clients, which is middle of funnel and nurture. When it comes to showing up on social media, what's been maybe feeling hard or feeling like a challenge for you recently with social media?

Erika Millard (06:40.671)
Yeah, I think one challenge for me is showing, you know, I'm a mom of four kids. And so sometimes I want to show like you can be a business owner and a mom. And sometimes it's a little chaotic. And that is the reality. But how to pair that to where you don't lose the trust and trustworthiness of.

Wow, she's a chaotic mess. Like, can she clean up my mess? So that I think is sometimes a tension that I have because sometimes to me it's like it's more genuine to show life is kind of crazy in my world, but I don't want to lose the professionalism. And so sometimes I feel that tension of I also my brand, I want it to be.

Ruthie Sterrett (07:10.191)
Yeah

Erika Millard (07:30.231)
comfortable and relatable and authentic and not the stuffy financial jargon that you often see. But how to do that in a way that still builds my authority and provides trust.

Ruthie Sterrett (07:46.043)
Yeah, I love that word that you use, tension, because I think a lot of women struggle with that. And I think one of the reasons that we struggle with that is when we look at Instagram or social media, we see maybe 1 % of people's lives, right? But we see 100 % of my own life. So it feels like if I'm not showing you all the facets of my life, I may be being inauthentic.

But then it's like, wait, but if I show you all of those things, then I don't look like the 1 % that I'm watching. And then now do I have the same authority as those other business owners, accounts, creators who I feel like are being successful. And that's where I think creating a social media strategy can be super helpful. Because if we sit down and we say, okay, in this season, this quarter, whatever it may be, whether it's three months, six months, what?

personal aspects do I feel comfortable sharing? What little drips of humanization can I add into my content? And then what are the pieces of my expertise that I want to share and show up with? And I think deciding too in terms of the surfaces of social media. So we talk a lot about platforms. Like what do people go to Instagram for? What do they go to threads for? What do they go to LinkedIn for? Which like, my gosh, then there's so many of where do I even show up?

But within each of those pro platforms, and let's take Instagram for example, we have reels, we have carousels, we have stories, we have DMs, we have broadcast channels, we have the weird little thing above your name that people, you can write a note in, I don't even know what those things are called. And so being intentional ahead of time, I think can eliminate some of that chaos.

of like, what do I even show? And then, my gosh, I'm being so inconsistent because I haven't set a strategy in place, right?

Erika Millard (09:48.43)
Yeah, I think it can make me get into a little bit of paralysis of like not wanting to share anything because I'm like well don't want this to come off as chaotic But I don't want this to come off as stuffy, and I don't know where the middle is so I'm just not gonna do it at all

Ruthie Sterrett (09:52.87)
and

Ruthie Sterrett (10:02.469)
Yeah, I think that is such a common kind of like tension that we feel and place that so many business owners get in their heads about. And we overthink it so much that analysis paralysis, that like freeze state of I'm just gonna do nothing or then I'll see people that like they start to share something and they get scared of like, well, this I shouldn't talk about this or I shouldn't talk about that. And at the end of the day, like,

we have to remind ourselves nobody is looking at your content as much as you. nobody's thinking about you as much as you are thinking about you and that's okay. But that clarity of what you want your audience to walk away both thinking, knowing and feeling when they interact with your content is an important piece of it because then that informs like what do we actually share? How often do we share? It allows us to either batch or feel like

Erika Millard (10:34.435)
True.

Ruthie Sterrett (10:59.648)
you know, we're going to do something more spontaneous. And I'm curious for you, what have you found works well? Is it batching ahead of time or is it creating more in the moment?

Erika Millard (11:11.309)
kind of a mix. I feel like I do a light, kind of general theme for a month or a quarter. I was actually working on my quarter last night. So I do kind of some general topics, especially because I still do use my podcast and repurpose a lot of that content on Instagram. So I have the podcast episodes planned out, typically like six weeks ahead of time, if not more. So I'll kind of...

central things around that. But then to kind of stay current with like trending audio or just my creativity in the moment, I will not be too far out where I can't jump on a trend or jump on something that hits me later on. So I kind of loosely outline it and then fill some pieces in if something sparks me.

Ruthie Sterrett (12:06.119)
Yeah, that makes sense. know, talking about that you started the podcast and you love to use your content to to teach and to educate, but that also you provide a service. You are that service provider that can do it for people who are done DIYing. When you're planning your content, do you find that you lean more towards teaching? And if so, are you?

consciously or intentionally inviting people to work with you in your content. What does that look like in terms of kind of the like conversion piece for you?

Erika Millard (12:44.198)
Yeah, I naturally want to just teach and teach and teach and be like the helpful resource. And so I have, I feel like I have started to switch that over a little bit more of just, well, and also I feel like a lot of my more direct call to actions are on my podcast. So I do still then direct people from Instagram to my podcast. So I do kind of go back and forth.

Ruthie Sterrett (13:14.044)
Mm-hmm.

Erika Millard (13:14.446)
But I, yeah, I'm really trying to lead them over there because that's where I feel like I'm more pitching my true services or having them take a next step action. And sometimes though it is like send me a DM if this is a struggle for you. So I am trying to connect some of the education with like, and then tell me a little bit more in depth in private because

Ruthie Sterrett (13:28.956)
Hmm.

Ruthie Sterrett (13:41.767)
Yeah.

Erika Millard (13:42.103)
I think also with my topic specifically, there is a lot of shame and fear and embarrassment that like everybody else has it figured out, but I don't or I don't want to look dumb when I ask this question because it seems like everybody else knows. Like people just throw out these words and I don't know what these words mean. So I do try to also be conscientious of that, but still give the invitation like.

DM me privately then so that we can continue the conversation. But I don't know, sometimes that is challenging because there's not as much engagement on the direct posts. So I am always trying to just remind myself of, well, what side conversations am I having that is starting from this or kind of initiated or on top of mind because I've been posting.

Ruthie Sterrett (14:36.709)
Yeah, that is really interesting about asking for help or the shame that people might feel around their lack of knowledge around numbers and accounting. And I think when I think about your brand and how you show up and how you serve, just being aware of that shame that people are feeling and acknowledging it is such an important differentiator.

And I think my brain is immediately like, we lead with that, then we teach, then we go to the invitation. And maybe the invitation is just, I know this is scary to talk about, I'm in the DMs, I'm available, you know where to find me. Versus just like, do you wanna hire me, do you wanna work with me? But like moving them to that next step of like you said, a DM conversation. And I get that it's like, okay, but then they're not engaging with the post, they're not commenting on the post.

And it's interesting though, because Moseri, head of Instagram, came out just recently, if you're listening to this episode live, it was like early October, and said that they're building the algorithm or tweaking the algorithm where DMs are the number one indicator of success because that's how people discover new content. Is their friends DMing each other or creators DMing?

their audience, their audience DMing the creators. And so even that is an invitation of like, hey, send me a DM, hey, DM me this post if you just want me to expand on it more. So asking them to take your individual post, send it to you. And then you know as the trigger of like, okay, people wanna hear more about this. And if you're open to sharing a question privately, like I have the question box in your stories.

could be a really great way to drive engagement because stories engagement is kind of like DMs, right? And then it's signaling to the algorithm that people wanna hear from you, that you have value to share. And we obviously don't want to create content for just the algorithm, but we have to work with it because it is part of the equation, right?

Erika Millard (16:49.132)
Yeah, that's really encouraging to hear because it's so easy to get caught in the vanity metrics of like, man, this post only gets one comment or two comments, but then I'm just having to remind myself often, like, no, this is actually doing its job if they're coming later to start a conversation. So I don't need to worry so much about those numbers, but more be focused on the conversations that I am having.

Ruthie Sterrett (17:18.149)
Yes, I think that's super important of understanding which metrics are aligned with our actual goals, which metrics indicate that the post or the platform is doing the job we've given it. And then taking those other metrics and being like, I don't need to worry about that because I have other things doing those jobs. in terms of likes and followers, I think this is one thing that I've seen a lot of service providers get like.

Maybe in that comparison-itis, imposter syndrome of like, so-and-so has a bigger following. Well, I can tell you behind the scenes who's worked on people's accounts, a lot of people's big followings are fake, they're bots, or they are real people, but they're like not in their target audience. So they're not engaging with their content because they've built an audience that is not really relevant. And so...

while followers is certainly a number that can indicate certain things, it's like you said, it's a vanity metric and it's not the only metric that we should be following. So as we talk about like kind of that done for you service provider or being in a niche that like might feel saturated, like there are lots of bookkeepers, there are lots of social media managers, there are lots of realtors, there are lots of like people in certain industries that it can feel like, my gosh, well how am I ever going to stand out

based on my expertise alone, right? Because lots of people have that same expertise. I think that's where it kind of becomes like the personal brand and the human aspect of it. And I know it goes back to our conversation of like, what do I share and what do I not share? Have you found that there's any personal things that is working for you already that whether it's in posts or talking about on your podcast or in your stories that people like respond to and resonate with?

Erika Millard (19:09.75)
Yeah, a handful of things, but I feel like this is actually right where I'm kind of testing things out again of just what, how do I bring more of my personality and more personal things into the brand and mesh them together? But yeah, my handful of things is usually like life with kids or trying to work with kids at home. That's usually.

Ruthie Sterrett (19:16.337)
Yeah.

Erika Millard (19:38.039)
relatable and kind of sometimes where like my funny or more humorous real ideas will come from because they can just be a little bit more goofy. But I think even that I think that is what I'm trying to lean into a little bit more is humor and like ease and comfort because that's what I don't see among most accounting financial professionals. It's usually very professional.

Ruthie Sterrett (19:44.167)
Hmm.

Erika Millard (20:08.046)
And so I think that's one thing I'm trying to add in even more to stand out. And then, yeah, I think those are more the personal things. The other thing I've been trying to work on is, you know, I see some bigger brands, like they have so much FOMO around.

like their events or their masterminds or their, and so that's been a piece that I've been trying to figure out, okay, how do I bring that into bookkeeping where it's like, I don't think people necessarily want a community around their bookkeeping. So how do I create that FOMO or like come join what we're doing? And so what I've come to and what I'm again, kind of trying to,

Ruthie Sterrett (20:45.735)
Yeah.

Erika Millard (20:57.23)
test out and expand on more is really trying to focus on the results that some of my clients are getting and help create some FOMO maybe around that. Like if this person who's doing this, this, this, and this can keep up with their bookkeeping or if this person like can understand the reports that we're sending them every month, like you can too.

And so that's another element that I'm trying to add into the brand. I'm not really sure if that was your question, but that's another element I'm trying to add into the brand to like see where that might take us.

Ruthie Sterrett (21:32.517)
Yeah, I think that's interesting that you observed, okay, certain types of brands, certain types of businesses, they're seeing success with their content by creating FOMO. And that FOMO is being created through community, through events, and you're like, okay, but that does not apply to my business. Like I'm not having conferences about bookkeeping. I'm not, you know, creating a community to ask about numbers because people don't want to ask about numbers in community. So how can you apply that?

in a way that works for your brand and your audience. And I think what you said, like FOMO about results is absolutely, or community around results of like, if she can, you can. And I think, I hear you say a lot of I'm testing this, I'm testing that. I'm curious when you're testing something, how long are you testing it? And what is the data that you're maybe looking at before you decide, yay, this works or no, it doesn't?

Erika Millard (22:27.342)
Yeah, I probably need to track that a little bit better even as a numbers, you know I like data and numbers, but sometimes it's just easy to go by my feelings which is What I preach not to do with your bookkeeping and so I'm gonna preach that to myself here Yeah, you know, I think it this is all kind of been fleshed out even more in the past couple weeks for me I've just coming like

trying to observe what others are doing and apply that to my own industry. So my plan, and you can tell me if I should make a different plan, has been to test it this quarter of just, okay, let me do more of this content. And for me, I think it's, do I have people kind of responding with like, yeah, that's me, or with more of relatable responses?

Again, I think that's going to probably mostly be in DMs. Sometimes polls do well for me or like swiping bars like, yes, this is me, like a raise hand thing. Again, it's kind of more in private. It's not as much people commenting on the post itself, but more sending me messages. And I mean, I'm not saying I don't get any of that, but it's a lot more rare.

Ruthie Sterrett (23:47.899)
Yeah.

Erika Millard (23:49.135)
And yeah, I'm curious if people will come back with that sense of like, you get me or you're in my head every once in a while. I'll have posts where people will comment. are you do you live in my head? I'm like, OK, this is, know, I hit the pain point finally. So I think that's really what I'm looking for is some of those types of, you like really understand me.

Ruthie Sterrett (24:08.687)
Yeah.

Erika Millard (24:17.422)
comments or messages or... Which is, I don't know, that sometimes is harder to track. I mean, I could track like DM responses or if my story views go up or something like that. But sometimes I don't totally know how someone is reacting to it.

Ruthie Sterrett (24:38.575)
Yeah, well, story views, stories are such a hard thing to track. mean, number one, Instagram does not make it easy for us. Like the metrics are so hard to see, the replies, the whether or not somebody clicked a button, they use the slider. Like it's so hard to go back and find that data after the 24 hours are up. I mean, you can do it sometimes, but it's difficult and it's time consuming. So I totally get that.

I think what I'm hearing you say about every so often you'll get a comment or you'll get a DM of like, are you in my head? That's where we take that piece of content and we double down on it. And so many creators, brands, business owners, I think they feel uncomfortable being repetitive because we see every single piece of our content.

And so if somebody said like, this is how I feel, it's almost like you got to take that, you got to make 10 pieces of content that are like that, that are that same message. And we just do that over and over and over again. And then after a quarter, we actually have the data to understand because yes, absolutely. A quarter is a great period of time. I always tell people, it at least two months. Like 30 days is not enough, at least two months, but it's got to be two to three months at an intensity.

that is giving us enough data. So if it's like I did this one post and it worked well and I didn't do it again for three months, well then we don't really know. But if we see in the moment this one post did really well and now I'm gonna make 10 more posts like it and over the next 10 weeks or eight weeks or whatever, I'm gonna track how that content continues to resonate. And I was actually just having a conversation with a data analyst about the difference between tracking on an account level.

like every single month, I think most of us look at our metrics monthly, but on a post level, which is, again, it's time intensive, but if we're trying to figure out what works, that's the data that's actually gonna get us there, is that post level data and making not just notes about the metrics, but pairing the data with your gut feeling, because your gut does know too, right?

Erika Millard (26:52.808)
Yeah, yeah, I think that's good because I'm often even telling my clients too, like sometimes you just know like this isn't right and you might need some help figuring out why it's not right. But often that feeling is true. And then if you have the data to back it up, then you can feel like, okay, my gut was leading me in the right direction versus

just going by gut and then sometimes you're all over the place and the numbers will tell you something else. So yeah, that's helpful even in a social media perspective to remind myself of like look at both of those things to be able to tell.

Ruthie Sterrett (27:25.158)
Yeah.

Ruthie Sterrett (27:33.307)
Yeah, yeah. And as a service provider, I think this is something that I want any service providers listening to really hear. Some of the things that we're talking about are time consuming and labor intensive. And it's important to take maybe another step back and go back to that question of where does social media fit in my funnel and how big of a role does it play? And do I need to spend that amount of time?

Because maybe you don't. If we say, okay, top of funnel, my clients are coming from my podcast, middle of funnel, my clients are being nurtured from social media, and then there's some back and forth between the two, and then bottom of funnel, where are I getting conversions? Where am I getting people either on a discovery call or asking to work with me? Is that happening via email? Is that happening via your website? Is it happening in the DMs?

it's happening in the DMs, then maybe social media is a bigger piece of the puzzle. So we do need to spend more time on it. But then even for you and or any service provider, it's like, well, how many clients do you need? Because if you don't need 5,000, we don't need to spend that much time on it. And I think this is a big difference between people who sell digital products or course creators and service providers.

As a done-for-you service provider, you need less people in that piece of your business because you can only serve so many. You have a capacity. And while, yes, you want to keep your funnel flowing and you want to make sure that we don't ever stop that top of funnel and middle of funnel so that when we need to convert, we have a pipeline, we maybe don't need to put so much pressure on ourselves, right?

Erika Millard (29:15.656)
Yeah, that's helpful too because it's so easy to get caught up in watching what everybody else is doing and I'm like, I see these big names with all these followers posting four times a day and I'm like, I feel that stress of like, don't do, I don't even post every single day, let alone four times a day. And then if I ground myself and come back to just what you're saying, okay, well what is the purpose? It's actually doing a pretty good job meeting the purpose.

Ruthie Sterrett (29:21.361)
and

Ruthie Sterrett (29:32.689)
me

Erika Millard (29:45.391)
And so I probably don't need to make huge changes to my posting plan or my content plan and just start tweaking, okay, can we get things to move faster? Or can we get things to maybe have two people instead of one? Or just those small changes when you are a service provider actually can make a big difference. So that's what I'm trying to focus on is I think it was in the...

10X is easier than 2X book where they talk about, you know, how can you make this just 1 % better? Because often that will be the difference maker. And so that's what I've been trying to remind myself is it doesn't have to be like this huge overhaul every quarter. It's just like, what are those small little tweaks that might get us a little bit closer or a little bit faster or one person land better? Because in a lot of our businesses that does make the difference.

Ruthie Sterrett (30:41.551)
Yeah, yeah. Well, all right, I want to wrap up with some kind of rapid fire personal questions, get to know you. And I want you, if you're listening, like think about Erica's answers, but think about your own answers, because these might be little personal things that you can incorporate in your own content. So my first question is, if you had a day totally to yourself, no kids, no client work, what are you doing with your time?

Erika Millard (31:06.998)
I want to go shopping because I never get to go to an actual mall by myself and just browse and not be on a timeline. So that's what I would do. I would get a coffee and then just go shopping and browse stores for fun.

Ruthie Sterrett (31:22.927)
Yes. What's your go-to coffee shop order or favorite like little treat from the coffee shop?

Erika Millard (31:28.59)
Yeah, okay here we have a place that has a Nutella latte and it's really good hot or iced. It's local. think to bur- I'm in Birmingham, so I think it's local to Birmingham. So I like going there and grabbing my Nutella latte.

Ruthie Sterrett (31:33.284)
Ooh.

Ruthie Sterrett (31:44.023)
Yes, I love it. All right, what's a random little thing that you are currently like obsessed with or it just brings you joy?

Erika Millard (31:53.423)
I have found a system for doing my own press on nails. And so that is a little thing, because I feel like I don't, I haven't, it's just like hard to get to the salon, and I don't have them on right now, but I love having my nails done, and so that just feels like a little me thing that's like easy to do and makes me feel better about myself.

Ruthie Sterrett (32:15.909)
Yeah, how often do you do your nails?

Erika Millard (32:18.92)
Usually like every 10 days I can get them to last about that long. I'm in my 24 hours. They got a rest window

Ruthie Sterrett (32:20.731)
Okay.

Ruthie Sterrett (32:26.159)
Yeah. So I have a content idea for you. So take a time lapse video of you doing your nails. So like it's B-roll, Erica's sitting at the table, she's doing her nails. And then we're going to use that video and we're going to do a voiceover with it of like things you might be thinking about your accounting, part one. Things you might be thinking about QuickBooks, part two, or questions my clients have about QuickBooks, part one. And then you're going to have text on screen that's like answering these questions about QuickBooks.

listen for the answers. And then we're gonna make that a series. So every time you do it, and then as you show up in people's feed, you're gonna be known as, that bookkeeper who's doing her nails. And it becomes like a repeatable thing that people can kind of connect with and identify with.

Erika Millard (33:15.372)
love that because I'm always like, what do I do every day, every so often consistently? I hear that tip, but I haven't figured out how to apply it. So thank you.

Ruthie Sterrett (33:25.093)
Yes, yes, I love it. All right, last question is what kind of content do you love to consume on social media? Like what are you finding yourself double tapping on or saving or sending to a friend?

Erika Millard (33:37.786)
Usually it's like humor. I love skit reals. So like if people are in characters Those usually like really get my attention. I'm usually if I'm just gonna scroll I'm there to like have fun and laugh

Ruthie Sterrett (33:52.709)
Yeah, yeah. And I think that's something for us to remind ourselves as whether you are an educator or a service provider, we are competing for attention on the platform with people whose job it is to only entertain us. And I had a family member ask me this question over the weekend. We were talking about political influencers and like people who report on the news and like just different people that we all follow.

And my aunt was like, how do you like, like, Ruthie, how do you keep up like as a social media provider and a business owner? And I said, well, I have to remind myself that a lot of those people, their job is creating content and that is literally all they do or their content is getting them speaking engagements or book deals or other ways to promote content. And then they're literally just making money off their content. I sell a service.

That's how I make money. My clients often sell a service or they may sell a course or a workshop or they're a coach. so they're not making money just being content creators. So while although our content is competing for attention with that other content, we can't compare ourselves because we're using our content for different things, right?

Erika Millard (35:09.752)
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, but I feel like it's still hard to remind yourself and not try to emulate what an influencer is doing, even though it's not applicable in your services.

Ruthie Sterrett (35:24.719)
Yeah, it is. It's totally true. And I even remember this in my corporate days. You know, we used to, I worked for a athletic retailer, small to mid-size, like we had 20 stores. And we would sit there and meet in literal like meetings, like sea level meetings and talk about what Nike was doing. We're not Nike, okay? We don't have a billion dollars. Like you can't compare, but it's so easy to fall into that trap. And so it's just, I think that's where it's going back to what is my strategy.

Am I following my strategy? Is it doing the job I've asked it to do? How can I judge me against me? Or maybe it's me against an account that's more my size or my in my lane and not trying to follow somebody who's completely different and just not applicable. Yeah, well, I think this was such a helpful conversation and

I hope you listening got some takeaways and some ideas for your content. If you did, please send me a DM. Tell me, I want to hear. And if you have questions about accounting or QuickBooks, Erica is definitely the person to DM and ask those questions. Help her out with what she can talk about in her content. Where can people connect with you and learn more about how you support female entrepreneurs?

Erika Millard (36:39.34)
Yeah, this was, I had like so many takeaways from this conversation, so thank you. I'm over on Instagram at erika underscore millard, or you can come check out my podcast, Get Comfy With Numbers, if you need some help understanding your numbers.

Ruthie Sterrett (36:55.215)
yeah i love the name get comfy with numbers and i'm curious like where did that come from how did you land on that?

Erika Millard (37:00.622)
Yeah, I struggle to find a name for my podcast. I feel like if you've ever tried to name a podcast, it's hard. It's hard to not, like, you'll have these great ideas that you love and then someone else has it or it's trademarked or it's... So I had a list of those and I was just trying to figure out, I knew I wanted like the cozy, comfy vibe and...

Ruthie Sterrett (37:25.553)
home.

Erika Millard (37:27.382)
I think it just hit me one day and I was like, this again, I went through the like, is this too unprofessional? Is this so I made the tagline even more specific and searchable, which is making money easy for female entrepreneurs and made sure I put like QuickBooks and bookkeeping in the as the keywords and all of that. But yeah, I knew that. And then when I looked at my competition to it was like.

Ruthie Sterrett (37:39.569)
here.

Erika Millard (37:55.692)
You see a lot of male faces or you see just podcasts that cover like the cover arts, like an icon of money. There's hardly any female, hardly any pink unless you're like specifically talking about bookkeeper, like people who are trying to teach people to become bookkeepers. Then there's some people in that space. So anyway, it just kind of all came together. I was like, OK, I think this is the name.

Ruthie Sterrett (38:14.215)
Okay.

Ruthie Sterrett (38:24.025)
Yeah, well, it actually just triggered another idea for a content series that you could do in reels or this could even be stories that maybe get repurposed into reels down the road of like, I see that in your reels, you do a lot where you're like holding money. And so that's a great like visual. But I think also like you with a blanket on the couch, like answering a question of like, we're gonna get comfy with numbers. This is the one thing I wanna teach you today.

And then we have that one little quick tip, that one little, is what this means, or I had somebody ask me about this, but making that again like a series, a repeatable thing where that getting comfy and then talking about numbers, it becomes like a consistent part of your messaging.

Erika Millard (39:08.184)
Okay, I'm gonna do both of those and report back.

Ruthie Sterrett (39:10.215)
I love it. Thank you so much for being here and thank you all who are listening today and we'll see you in the next episode of the Consistency Corner podcast.